“Yo, dude,” someone said to DJ Jazzy Jeff, gesturing toward the television. “You’re a character in the game.” The DJ born Jeffrey Allen Townes was hanging out with friends when a group had fired up a game of NBA Jam and entered his code. In the 90s, Townes and Will Smith were hip-hop musicians as well as stars of a popular sitcom, plus they worked with the NBA on its “Stay in School” campaign, so they made an excellent fit for the game. It’s likely that Smith played as himself in NBA Jam, according to Townes, though he typically didn’t have the patience for video games.
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Little information is available on Acclaim’s licensing and compensation for use of the special guests. The fine print on one of the game’s boxes showed a copyright notice for George Clinton’s “P-Funk” nickname, but Clinton did not recall ever receiving any payment or signing any agreement for his likeness. The same went for Townes. While Clinton thought his inclusion as a secret character was cool, he associated it with a time when he routinely went unpaid for use of his likeness and music. His career, he said, had been plagued by stories of reneged contracts and missing royalties. “NBA Jam,” he said, “is just one of 1,300 of them.”
Four billion quarters. The was how much money NBA Jam's coin-operated arcade machines gobbled up in the game's first year of existence in 1993. It was a remarkable feat then as the game grossed more than $1 billion in sales that first year, doubling up earnings of popular movies of the same year like "Jurassic Park" and "The Fugitive." It's a number that Mark Turmell, the game's co-creator and project lead for Midway Games back then, still has trouble wrapping his head around. “It was kind of a magical time back then,” he said. “It doesn't seem that long ago. But then I relive the the history and lore of NBA Jam. “It takes me back.”
Shaquille O'Neal was known to have his own personal machine loaded on to the Orlando Magic team plane. Then he would have the arcade machine set up in his hotel room where he and teammates would play through all hours of the night. "Penny Hardaway was good," Shaq said in an interview with Sports Illustrated. "I used to play as Chris Mullin or Reggie Miller all day." The NBA is known for being the fun league of the major sports. Stars like Westbrook and George drive the league's popularity around the globe. "NBA Jam" was re-made with newer players — including the Thunder and Westbrook — in 2010 by EA Sports.
On Saturday, the LA Clippers will celebrate the 25th anniversary year of the video game classic when they host the Sacramento Kings for NBA JAM Day. Fans will be eligible to receive an NBA Jam t-shirt with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, and someone could even win an original four-player arcade machine of NBA Jam. Tim Kitzrow, the original voice of the game, will be heard throughout the Kings-Clippers contest -- during pregame introductions and timeouts, perhaps even voicing over Griffin's memorable dunk over Jazz center Rudy Gobert in October.
They ended up with four meters for player attributes: Speed, 3-pointers, dunks, and defense. They added clutch in the Tournament Edition game, which Turmell said was a much better game. (Chris Webber had a "zero" in clutch in the arcade version of Tournament Edition.) Turmell, who was a big Detroit Pistons fan -- and, thus, hated the Chicago Bulls -- famously even tried to rig late-game situations that involved the Bulls and Pistons. If the Bulls were in a close game with the Pistons and took a last-second shot, there was a special code in the game that would cause those shots to be bricks more often than normal. "Nah, I didn't know anything about that," Scottie Pippen said. "But I'm sure it was, they were beating us back in those days. But we were the better team, and the better players. But I'm sure they had a code in us somehow to kind of, keep us down.
Electronic Arts (EA) Sports re-booted the franchise in 2010 and still has the rights, but Kitzrow is working with Microsoft to possibly get the game resurrected for the 25th anniversary. "I can't speak anything to the specifics, but I can tell you there is movement in the works to get it done for the 25th year," Kitzrow said. "So I'm hoping that we get a remake that does justice to the original."
First off, that's just a great Gary Payton story. But more importantly: There's a version of NBA Jam with MJ in it! That's significant because, as the feature notes, Jordan opted out of the NBAPA's licensing agreement, so he wasn't included in the legendary game. The vital question here is: Can I play it? Turmell actually answered that question earlier this year in a Reddit AMA (hat tip to Polygon for finding it). When asked if he could dump that version on the Interwebs, he replied, "I could! Will try to dig up." Polygon followed up with Turmell, who had this to say: "I was referring to EPROMs." he said. "I have a cabinet stored away with sets of them.
